Officially based in Virginia, Oxygen Forensics develops software capable of extracting and analysing data from smartphones and computers. The US Department of Justice accuses the company of concealing the fact that it was in fact owned and run from Russia, and documents seen by Politico show that the company has also made inroads in Europe.
It was initially involved in two EU-funded projects dedicated to the handling of digital evidence. The first, EVIDENCE, which received over €1.9 million between 2014 and 2016, saw the company working alongside Europol, Eurojust and the digital investigation unit of the European Anti-Fraud Office. The second, INSPECTr, supported by the Horizon 2020 programme and running until 2023, developed a tool to facilitate the analysis of data extracted using its software. The European Commission states that Oxygen was not a member of either consortium and therefore received no funding, and points out that entities based in Russia have been excluded from Horizon Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Its products were subsequently accredited or purchased by the German, Spanish, Italian and Polish police forces, as well as by the Romanian and Latvian law enforcement agencies. The French investigative media outlet Disclose has also revealed that the EU had funded the Moroccan authorities’ purchase of the software, as well as training delivered by Oxygen employees, as part of a border management programme in the Maghreb.
According to Washington, the software was developed in Russia under the direction of Oleg Davydov, whilst the American Lee Reiber was presented as its CEO. Both men were arrested – the former at London Heathrow Airport as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul, and the latter in the United States. The five Russians at the helm of Oxygen also controlled a sister company, MKO Systems, which sold the same technology to the FSB and the Russian Ministry of the Interior. The complaint makes no mention of any malicious code or unauthorised access to customer data, but US investigators have seized bank accounts and 57 domain names. Politico
Europe
🇷🇺 Russia - 🇺🇦 Ukraine • Russian strikes have once again brought grief to Ukraine this weekend. On Sunday, five people were killed, including two at a market in the western suburbs of Kyiv, two in Sumy near a family support centre, and a motorist in Kharkiv. Today, a drone struck the Academy of Sciences in broad daylight in the heart of the capital, killing at least one person and injuring several others, whilst a medical centre was also hit. Three people were killed in Dnipro, another in Synelnykove, and at least 43 people, including 11 children, were injured in Kharkiv, according to the Prime Minister. Moscow claims to have targeted logistics, port and military sites, whilst Ukraine struck oil facilities in the Krasnodar region, two defence factories in Tula and Voronezh, and railway lines in Bryansk. On the front line, Operation “Vivaldi” has enabled the Ukrainian army to recapture 176 km² in the north of the Donetsk region.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom • Five British nationals aged between 23 and 25, arrested yesterday near the Royal Air Force base at Fairford – which is used by the US military in its war against Iran – have been released on bail, subject to strict conditions. They are suspected of offences under the Explosives Act and of preparing a terrorist act, following a report from a farmer who had spotted three vehicles and a group of masked men. The counter-terrorism police have not ruled out the involvement of a foreign state, and British media are suggesting an Iranian link, which Tehran “categorically” denies. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has called a crisis meeting.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom • Several thousand demonstrators yesterday prevented a march by the Orange Order from crossing Garvaghy Road, a Catholic neighbourhood in Portadown, Northern Ireland, where this Protestant march had been banned since the 1998 peace agreement. The courts had authorised the march overnight, a decision condemned by Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill, who was present amongst the protesters alongside Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald. The British and Irish Prime Ministers have called for calm.
🇨🇭 Suisse • More than two-thirds of Swiss voters yesterday rejected an initiative by the SVP (far right), which sought to enshrine a stricter definition of the country’s neutrality in the Constitution. The proposal would have prohibited Switzerland from cooperating with a military alliance such as NATO and from imposing sanctions on a belligerent state outside the framework of the UN, such as those imposed on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.
🇫🇷 France – 🇻🇦 Vatican • On the final day of his visit to France, Leo XIV celebrated Mass today in Metz before some 35,000 worshippers. The Pope called on Europe to stand up against “lies and deceit” in “increasingly barbaric” international relations, and paid tribute to Robert Schuman, one of the founders of the European Union.
🇪🇺 European Union • ECB President Christine Lagarde told the European Parliament that a “measured response” remained appropriate in the face of inflation, which has exceeded 3 per cent in the eurozone due to soaring energy prices linked to the conflict between the United States and Iran, without, at this stage, having an impact on wages. She also announced that the ECB would be working on swap lines to facilitate borrowing in euros by foreign central banks and strengthen the euro’s international role.
Africa
🇪🇹 Ethiopia • Fighting continues in the north of the country, where TPLF forces captured the town of Erebti in the Afar region yesterday and are advancing towards Afdera, the gateway to the only road link from Djibouti. A humanitarian source estimates that 150,000 people have been displaced in the region. In Mekele, a drone struck the building housing Tigray’s state television station, without causing any injuries. The head of the federal army, Field Marshal Birhanu Jula, accuses Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of supporting the rebels.
🇿🇦 South Africa • At least 27 people were killed in two shootings this weekend. Eight armed men shot dead 17 people in a bar in Wedela, south-west of Johannesburg, and 10 others were killed at a barbecue in a township in Cape Town. No suspects have been arrested, and President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on the security forces to reduce crime in a country that averages 60 murders a day.
🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo • The number of confirmed cases of Ebola in the country has exceeded 8,000, with 3,901 deaths, according to the Institute of Public Health. This 17th outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain for which there is neither a vaccine nor an approved treatment, is now the worst in the country’s history and the second worst in the world, behind the one that struck West Africa between 2014 and 2016.
🇸🇩 Sudan • More than a year after the army retook Khartoum, some of the 2.7 million people who have returned to the capital are becoming disillusioned. Unexploded ordnance has killed or injured dozens of children, with the UN estimating that barely 1 per cent of the city is safe, whilst water and electricity cuts, a shortage of medicines and difficulties in finding work are driving some residents to leave again, particularly to Egypt or the United Arab Emirates.
Asia-Pacific
🇲🇲 Myanmar • An air strike by the army on a market and a bridge in Kyauktaw, in Rakhine State, has left 33 dead and 36 injured, according to the Arakan Army, which controls the area and fears the death toll may rise. This market, situated on the banks of a river that crosses the Indian border, is a vital trade route for a region largely cut off from the rest of the country and plagued by famine.
🇮🇩 Indonesia • The death toll from the sinking of the ferry Virgo Transport 8, which was carrying 243 people in the Java Sea, has risen to 71, the authorities announced on the 16th day of the search. The vessel capsized on 13 September in bad weather between Surabaya and Banjarmasin, and 108 people survived. Divers, limited to a depth of 27 metres, are continuing to search for the missing in the cabins.
🇲🇲 Myanmar - 🇹🇭 Thailand • Flooding caused by torrential rain has claimed eight lives in Thailand and the same number in southern Myanmar, where 20 to 30 people are reported missing following landslides. In Thailand, more than 1.7 million people have been affected across 27 provinces, and Bangkok, which has been placed under a state of emergency, could take up to a week to drain the floodwaters, with schools closed and more than 80,000 residents stranded in their homes.
🇨🇳 China - 🇺🇸 United States - 🇹🇼 Taiwan • The US ambassador to Beijing, David Perdue, stated that Donald Trump had offered Xi Jinping the chance to buy US weapons, in response to Chinese concerns over arms sales to Taiwan. The State Department reiterated that US law prohibits such sales. A $14 billion arms deal sought by Taipei has remained on hold since the spring, with Donald Trump viewing it as “a very good bargaining chip”.
Middle East
🇺🇸 United States - 🇮🇷 Iran • On Saturday, Donald Trump rejected Iran’s plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, arguing that Iranian leaders had “overplayed their hand”. Tehran was calling, in particular, for a ceasefire on all fronts, the unfreezing of assets and the lifting of US sanctions – conditions already set out in the June memorandum of understanding. The US president nevertheless expects talks to resume this week – which, according to Axios, Qatar could host – whilst the Wall Street Journal reports that he is considering further strikes following the mid-term elections on 3 November. The Iranian military says it is prepared for any attack, with its commander-in-chief, Amir Hatami, warning that if Iran cannot trade, “no one will be able to trade or live”. Yesterday, the Revolutionary Guards claimed to have seized a US underwater drone in the Strait, where ships continue to be regularly targeted despite the absence of US strikes on Iran since 1 September.
🇮🇱 Israel - 🇳🇱 Netherlands • Israel announced yesterday that it was revoking the diplomatic status of Dutch diplomats accredited to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, in response to Dutch sanctions against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. They have seven days to return their documents. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar warned that any country acting “hostilely” towards Israel would lose “its influence and relevance in the region”.
